Nikki R. Keddie - Böcker

The standard history of modern Iran, now revised and updated to explain the country’s tumultuous recent historyIn this substantially revised and expanded version of Nikki Keddie’s classic work Roots of Revolution, the author brings the story of modern Iran to the present day, exploring the political, cultural, and social changes of the past quarter century. Keddie provides insightful commentary on the Iran-Iraq war, the Persian Gulf War, and the effects of 9/11 and Iran’s strategic relationship with the U.S. She also discusses developments in education, health care, the arts, and the role of women.

These essays examine Iran’s place in the world--its relations and cultural interactions with its immediate neighbors and with empires and superpowers from the beginning of the Safavid period in 1501 to the present day. The book provides important historical background on recent political and social developments in Iran and on its contemporary foreign relations. The topics explored include Iranian influence abroad on political organization, religion, literature, art, and diplomacy, as well as Iran's absorption of foreign influences in these areas. A special focus is the prevailing political culture of Iran throughout its early modern and contemporary periods.The authors combine approaches from history, political science, anthropology, international relations, and culturalstudies. Some essays address Iran’s interactions with various Arab and Turkic ethnicities in the region stretching from India to Egypt. Others examine its relations with the West during the Qajar and Pahlavi eras, women's issues, culture inside Iran during the Islamic Republic, and the Shi`ite theocracy of Iran as compared with other Muslim states.

Shi’i Muslims, who make up eleven percent of the population of Islamic nations, have produced more than their share of political activism – from the Iranian revolution in 1978-79 to a series of dramatic individual actions, most recently in Lebanon.  Why has Twelver Shi’ism changed from quietism to an active involvement in politics?  How will Shi’i political activism affect the struggle in and for Lebanon, the Iran-Iraq war, Soviet attitudes toward Afghanistan and Iran, and United States policies toward the Middle East?This timely and important book is the first overview of Shi’i political activism in each of the countries where it has been significant.  The contributors to the volume – scholars with wide-ranging expertise – here present up-to-date information on the factors involved in the recent rise of Shi’i activism.  Surprisingly, the authors find that national identities have often been more important for Shi’i Muslims than transnational religious solidarity; Shi’is in most countries have mobilized for greater participation in their nation’s resources and political life rather than for Shi’i separatism or clerical rule.  According to the authors, Shi’is have not by any means reached a final point in their political activities; their political future depends largely on the degree to which the demands and desires of their local groups are met.“A useful guide to the largely unexplored terrain of Shi’i history and tradition behind today’s headlines in the Middle East.”-- Gary G. Sick, author of All Fall Down

"Keddie has rendered a valuable service ...Afghani merits the attention of Western students of the contemporary international scene and the Muslim renaissance since he made the first significant attempt to answer the modern Western challenge to the Muslim world." (Eastern World). "Sayyid Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani (1838-1897), the well known religious reformer and political activist, led a busy and complex life full of obscure and clandestine ventures...[Keddie] draws on a wide range of primary and secondary sources. In part I an attempt is made to provide an accurate biography and a consistent analysis of Afghani. Part II contains translations of some of his most important writings...Although Afghani was concerned with the wide ranging need for Islamic reform, he devoted most of his life to the more urgent political problems confronting Muslims - problems arising out of their weakness in dealing with the Western Christian powers. Hence the tide of this book.The picture that emerges here confirms Afghani's long standing reputation as a defender of Muslim interests - not against borrowing European advances in science and technology, but against foreign political, economic, or military encroachment." (Middle East journal). "Jamal ad-Din was a mysterious figure and most of the mysteries were of his own making ...it has been left to Professor Keddie to apply the methods of the critical historian to the matter...This book shows how successful she has been ...there has emerged for the first time a credible picture of Jamal ad-Din's life ...The second part contains translations of works by Jamal ad-Din himself, and these are valuable because most of them were written in Persian and have either not been easily available at all or else have been available only in Arabic translation. This is particularly true of the Refutation of the Materialists." (International journal of Middle East Studies). "For the first time a significant collection of the writings of al-Afghani are now available in English, and so, for the first time, this controversial figure has had more life breathed into him." (American Historical Review).

Written by a pioneer in the field of Middle Eastern women's history, Women in the Middle East is a concise, comprehensive, and authoritative history of the lives of the region's women since the rise of Islam. Nikki Keddie shows why hostile or apologetic responses are completely inadequate to the diversity and richness of the lives of Middle Eastern women, and she provides a unique overview of their past and rapidly changing present. The book also includes a brief autobiography that recounts Keddie's political activism as one of the first women in Middle East Studies. Positioning women within their individual economic situations, identities, families, and geographies, Women in the Middle East examines the experiences of women in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, in Iran, and in all the Arab countries. Keddie discusses the interaction of a changing Islam with political, cultural, and socioeconomic developments. In doing so, she shows that, like other major religions, Islam incorporated ideas and practices of male superiority but also provoked challenges to them.Keddie breaks with notions of Middle Eastern women as faceless victims, and assesses their involvement in the rise of modern nationalist, socialist, and Islamist movements. While acknowledging that conservative trends are strong, she notes that there have been significant improvements in Middle Eastern women's suffrage, education, marital choice, and health.

An account of the events of the Iranian Tobacco protest of 1891 to 1892. This book examines the developments which led to this sudden outburst of opposition, traces the course of events in each city and notes the importance of the protest for the creation of the Iranian opposition movemnent.

First Published in 1983. This book brings together the best of Professor Keddie's articles on Iran both published and newly written and spans almost two decades. Long before the current religious-political alliance in Iran startled the world and toppled the Shah, Prof.Keddie undertook a series of studies that reveal the social, economic, doctrinal and political roots of what she was the first to call the 'Religious-Radical' alliance in Iran.

First Published in 1983. This book brings together the best of Professor Keddie's articles on Iran both published and newly written and spans almost two decades. Long before the current religious-political alliance in Iran startled the world and toppled the Shah, Prof.Keddie undertook a series of studies that reveal the social, economic, doctrinal and political roots of what she was the first to call the 'Religious-Radical' alliance in Iran.

Debating Gender, Debating Sexuality incorporates many different and fruitful approaches to understanding gender and sexuality. In this collection, Nikki R. Keddie presents essays, chosen from the journal Contention, written by outstanding scholars and theorists, along with responses to them. Topics discussed include procreation and female oppression, trends in feminist theory, gender and U.S. social policy, Marxism and women's history, the male search for identity today and the works of Foucault and Freud. Contributors include Nicky Hart, Juliet Mitchell, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Barbara Laslett, Sandra Harding, Linda Gordon, Theda Skocpol, Deborah Valenze, Iris Berger, Philippa Levine, Susan Rubin Suleiman, Theodore C. Kent, Roy Porter, Mark Poster, Jeffrey Masson, Frederick Crews, and Jeffrey Prager.

Debating Gender, Debating Sexuality incorporates many different and fruitful approaches to understanding gender and sexuality. In this collection, Nikki R. Keddie presents essays, chosen from the journal Contention, written by outstanding scholars and theorists, along with responses to them. Topics discussed include procreation and female oppression, trends in feminist theory, gender and U.S. social policy, Marxism and women's history, the male search for identity today and the works of Foucault and Freud. Contributors include Nicky Hart, Juliet Mitchell, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Barbara Laslett, Sandra Harding, Linda Gordon, Theda Skocpol, Deborah Valenze, Iris Berger, Philippa Levine, Susan Rubin Suleiman, Theodore C. Kent, Roy Porter, Mark Poster, Jeffrey Masson, Frederick Crews, and Jeffrey Prager.

Throughout history, and especially in this century, revolutions have played a central role in human history. Yet, as both the Iranian revolution of 1978-79 and the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe made clear, revolutions are rarely predictable nor attributable to a single cause.Debating Revolutions brings together some of our best social and political thinkers to address two central questions of revolution: Can they be predicted? And what are their causes? In the debating style of Contention, the award-winning journal from which the essays are culled, the contributors—among them Charles Tilly, Jack A. Goldstone, Edward Berenson, Said Amir Arjomand, and Daniel Chirot—focus on the Iranian, Eastern European, and French revolutions, and on the theoretical and comparative aspects of revolutionary study. Unlike most anthologies, Debating Revolutions has a format that enables scholars to engage one another in discussion, thus resolving many disputes and addressing dilemmas, rather than merely outlining differences.